Virtualize Everything In the DataCenter

I've been selected to speak at a conference about virtualizing Exchange 2007. I submitted an abstract on this topic because it looks like it is just a matter of time before everything in the datacenter is virtualized. When performance intensive apps like Exchange can be virtualized, then it will be a sign to many in the industry that anything can be virtualized.

So to be fair, I'm still doing the testing and I don't know what it will show just yet. But evantually, applications like Exchange will be easily and routinely run as virtualized applications. The advantages of doing it will very quickly outwiegh the performance overhead - as servers become more and more powerful. When we have 8-core and 16-core servers available at the same price as today's dual and quad-core servers - we will be able to afford some performance overhead. In exchange (yes-this pun is intentional) flexibility in management of the datacenter is possible. IT staff will no longer have to wait until the wee hours of the night to upgrade hardware. Applications can be moved to servers with more power without being interrupted. A truly dynamic datacenter will be possible.

The reason that everything will be virtualized is that the management advantages are not fully realized, unless everything is virtualized. And once administrators get a taste of virtualization in test and dev or for their DNS and Domain Controllers they want the same capabilities in the rest of their everyday world.

The conference is VMworld in SF - http://www.vmware.com/vmworld

My session specifically is Virtualizing Exchange 2007: The Final Frontier? ( http://www28.cplan.com/cc166/session_details.jsp?isid=288993&ilocation_id=166-1&ilanguage=english )